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Sunday, November 2, 2008

I had a couple weeks of comments to go through so this Sunday sound out is kinda long. I suggest you take a break halfway through reading it. Get up, stretch your legs, grab a couple peanut butter cups form your kids' Halloween basket, and come back to finish. I'll wait.How long have you and Joe been together/married?16 long years

[about my kids' eye colors] And stupid question, but I can only come up with five colors.... blue, green, hazel, brown. Oops that's four. Apparently I can't count either :) Wahat are the other 2 colors?LOL! I can't believe how many people commented on this. I just meant that they all looked different. Austin has green eyes, but one of his eyes has a brown spot. It's weird. Savannah has gray-blue, Jackson has orangey-brown, Lexington has blue-green, Clay has hazel, and Brooklyn has really dark brown.

Why don't you have your review blog part of your new website?I dunno. I guess I could incorporate it. Hmmm...

I had noticed before that all of your kids seemed to be named after cities...except Clayton. Is that one a city too?Yup, it's a city. With Clay, we'd narrowed our choices to Dallas, Houston, Branson, and Clayton (which is in MO, AL, and CA). We let the other kids pick his name. They chose Clayton. Well, Austin and Savannah chose Clayton. Jackson wanted to name him Slicker. He ended up calling him Slicker for like a year.

Have you ever done a Mickey Mouse cake? I want to do one for my son's second birthday but I'm having a hard time finding ideas/supplies. Any tips? I personally get most of my supplies from Wilton. HERE are a bunch of cool Mickey ideas too. Austin asked for a "mystery cake" for his birthday this week. I have no idea what to make. Maybe a princess?

SSO - will you be blogging about the Sauve event?I did! You can read about it HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. Because of my agreement with BlogHerAds, I can't blog about products, services, and trips I've been given if their value is over $40. That's why I blog about some things on a separate review blog.

What do you get? What do you get? [for winning in the Blogger's Choice Awards]As far as I can tell, I get to say that I won for the best parenting blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards. ;)

Hi Dawn, you said that the new blog layout WAS your fridge, so now I'm intrigued... just how many refrigerators does your family go through? I thought the side-by-side fridge in your "Clay Steals a Cookie" video was your new one? Or did the web designer just rearrange it to be more functional as a web page?You have way too much time on your hands! ;) My designer took the picture of my fridge and made it into a functional website.

Congrats! And I have to ask...does Savannah mind being the only child whose name doesn't end in a "N" sound?Nope. That was a concern of mine when naming Clay and Brooklyn though. I didn't want her to be the only one.

[regarding the video HERE] Oh my. What possesses 4yo kids to want to eat their own arms?He said, "I'm Chicken Donald" (instead of Donald Duck perhaps?), then he said, "Mmmm chicken!" and started gnawing on his arm. I don't know. I've stopped trying to figure that one out.

My favorite part of the whole video is Clay doing the air quotes about "Mom is going to leave me."LOL! He said, "Yeah, Lex get to eat meat." Then he stood up while the tram was moving for like the fiftieth time. Then he and Lexi got into a deep conversation about whether or not we're made out of meat. Finally, they all spazzed their heads off.

Oh, I just love it that in the background you can hear one of the kids repeating "Die Nemo" over and over!Yeah, that must have come from some other obnoxious kids on the tram because mine would never be that embarrassing. A-hem.

Please tell this idiot what a Twitter is??!!!Twitter is micro blogging. I can send out little updates via my cell phone when I'm out and about and keep you up to date on all the unimportant goings on in my life. You can read the "tweets" on the left side of my blog or you can sign up to follow me at Twitter.com.

I'm guessing that they're ok with doing Disney and not Discovery Cove?They were thrilled with Disney, but they still preferred Discovery Cove. It was such a laid-back, relaxing place.

Where-oh-where are you all staying [in Sonoma]- McArthur Place, The Lodge, Farimont?We stayed at The Lodge.

Just curious--how did your foot with the plantar fasciitis hold up to the 500,000 mile walk?I was amazed, but it was actually fine! My legs and feet hurt a lot, but not my heel.

There has been a lot in the news lately about the exploitation of kids in "reality" TV, especially "John and Kate + 8" on TLC. If you were approached by a network to do a reality show that put cameras in your home 40+ hours a week, do you think you would do it? Just wondering what YOUR thoughts on this is.I hate hypothetical questions, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be interested in doing a reality TV show. That said, I don't think it's wrong that John and Kate do it. This works for their family. Think of all the opportunities that have come their way because of it. They've been able to do things they would never have done otherwise. I'm sure there are those out there who disagree, but you just can't say what you'd do until you've walked a mile in someone else's shoes. It's easy to say you'd never do a TV show, but when faced with raising 8 small children by yourself while your husband works a million hours a week, you might just change your mind.

I tell everyone I meet who has more than 3 kids all about your web site. I know it has blessed my life. Did you know that? Is that your intent? So, we laugh at ourselves and our lives as we hear you laughing at yourself and your family. I hope that helps you. Comments like these make me cry (in a good way) and make me LOVE writing! Thank you.

were any of the kids who rode it scared of the pirates of the Caribbean ride? (A.K.A. the best ride on earth!)No, but my sister sure was when she was a kid, weren't you, Deb? She freaked at the part where the ship and the town are firing canons at each other and the canonballs "land" in the water next to the boat. I mean, she FREAKED! She ducked down and hid on the bottom of the boat so she wouldn't get shot. LOL! Ahhh, good times, good times...

how was test track? please tell me that the rumors are not true, and that you cant really die from riding it? Ummm I hadn't heard that rumor. Joe went on Test Track with the kids while I stayed with sleeping Brooklyn. None of them died.

Wow. If you compared your past two weeks of your life, red-carpet walking with the stars, Disney hopping with the family, limo-jumping and wine-tasting with fellow authors, and checked back on your life exactly a year ago, did you think you'd be doing all this fun stuff?!?!? Never in a million years.

Who is watching the children while you're away? Joe

I noticed in that picture that you have a tattoo on your ankle. What is it of? First off, how on EARTH did you notice something like that? Man, I better make sure I never have spinach in my teeth when I post a picture of myself! And yes, I have a tattoo of a fish on my ankle. It seemed like a good idea when I was 18 and knew everything.

Got any tips for us "aspiring writers"?WRITE!

I'd love to know where you ate. I live in Sonoma County and I always love to hear people's restaurant raves. We ate most meals at The Lodge, but went into town and had one meal at El Dorado Kitchen.

Where are you finding these gorgeous clothes?? At exclusive boutiques like Target, JC Penney, and Dress Barn.

Where do you go for your corn maze? Harvard or something like that or closer?We've gone to several different places. I think we go to Malta most often (and it has nothing to do with the fact that you can stop in DeKalb for beer nuggets on the way home.)

[in regards to doing nothing for Halloween] Welcome to my life! Ha!Liberating, isn't it? ;-) Yes! In fact, I think I'm going to apply this theory to Thanksgiving and Christmas this year too!

[in regards to doing nothing this fall] It doesn't matter what you do, they will turn out warped and blame you anyway. ;) LOL!!!

For all us new bloggers out there, can you tell us how you got people to read your blog before the bonanza that was Ebay? And how did you learn to do all the extras on your blog like finding out how people found you on Google (I know you answered this before, but I couldn't find it!) and counting how many people visit your blog? Yup, compared to me, you're a technical genius! :o) Before the eBay thing, I had 5-10 people read my blog every day. I just asked my family and friends to read it. And I use statcounter.com to track the number of visitors, where they've come from, what keywords they googled, etc.

did you know that is one of walmart's $4 Perscriptions? Ugh, NOW you tell me! I actually knew that Meijer did that, but I didn't think about it when I went to get his prescription filled today. Grrr.

What happens with a ruptured ear drum? Did you have to go back to the doc or do you just let it drain and heal? Yeah, I'll just keep him on the antibiotics and let it be. I take him back to the doctor in 2 weeks to make sure it's healing up ok.

I completely understand with your kids only getting sick on holidays, @ 1am Sunday morning, or while you are on vacation. This also goes along the lines of "needing" special paper, glue, or a flux capacitor that they just magically remembered the night before a project was due. "Flux capacitor"! LOL!!! Even worse is when they need plutonium at the last minute!

How do you travel alone with 6 kids at home? Does Joe take off work and stay home? Do you have help come in? Do you just toss the kids in the crawl space? I thought about just tossing the kids in the crawl space, but I was afraid they'd damage the pipes down there. Joe just takes off a couple days and watches them.

I have to ask what kind of clotting disorder you have. I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism in February and they discovered that I have Protien S Deficency. I have a prothrombin gene mutation. My sister does too. She had a pulmonary embolism and the stubborn goat wouldn't go to the doctor. I had to pick her up and force her to go to the hospital.

And when I got home from our (yours and mine) Chicago trip my hubby says...I LOST 6 POUNDS WHILE YOU WERE GONE! I WAS SO BUSY I COULDN'T FIND TIME TO EAT!So, based on that, I should weigh like 4 lbs.I kicked him! LOL! I like the way you think!

Am I the first to notice the new Disney Magnet on the fridge?? Do I win a prize or something??? Ummm no. I hate to disappoint you, but that magnet's been there from the beginning of this design. My friend Debra got it at Disneyland and gave it to me for Christmas a couple years ago.

[in regards to me almost getting on a plane to Narita] "At NAA(Narita International Airport), objective is to maintain our status as one of the world leading international hub airports, "I <3> google...;) You almost went to Japan:PAt least it wasn't Yemen. (Did I happen to mention that I touched Matthew Perry like 8 times?! I did? Well be prepared to hear me say it at least another 20 times this year.)

And finally, you can check out my latest giveaway on my other blog HERE.

21 comments:

An idea for Austin's surprise cake: My sister-in-law made a "kitty litter box" cake for my nephew's 14th birthday... easy and grossly realistic! (It was like the one described at this link in the second paragraph under the title "Refreshments")

16 long years? Ouch. We've been married five so I'm not an expert, but when do you add the long descriptor? Is it at year 6 or 7?

Mystery cake -- I vote for the mystery machine from Scooby-Doo ;)

And Pirates of the Carribbean? Little Miss spent the entire ride with her head inside my dad somewhere and refused to talk about it afterwards. I think she's blocking it out of her mind. Mister Man was a bit scared by it, too... I'm impressed that all of yours were good with it!

Sad, I know... I've never heard of Malta. But I asked my personal atlas (that would be my husband who responded "a resort island in the Black Sea" and then admitted that there's a town in IL he's not familiar with -- THANK you, Dawn. I've been trying to stump him for years!).

[in regards to Austin's birthday cake] Make a sheet cake and put a big question mark on the top. It'll be a mystery and make it a little easier on yourself. You must be exhausted from traveling for two weeks straight!

And to the person who asked if the rumors were true about dying on test track, I think they meant Mission: Space. A 4-year-old died on it (heart, I believe) and they warn you about 72 times before getting on it to LEAVE NOW if you're nervous about it at all. Seriously, it was major overkill the times they warned you and was hard NOT to be nervous after all those warnings...

hope this isn't totally inappropraite, I don't know how many people read the comments but I figure its a lot more than read my blog LOL and I just feel like I need to make some attempt to warn people. Our family business was recently one of the victims of a huge mail scam. Some unknown person(s) aquired the businesses checking info and produced checks withour info and then sent checks, at least 100 that I'm aware of to innocent people as part of a scam. The letter was from a suppsed company called MUTUAL GRANT, in Canada. The letter tells people that they've been approved for a $50,000 grant if they just deposit the enclosed check and call a 800 # to find out where to send this money via MoneyGram. Many people realized it was a scam, but it appears that many were convince when they called the number. I have been getting calls for 2 weeks questioning the authenticity of the checks but just today began receiving checks from the individuals who fell for it. They are now trying to figure out how to get back close to $3000 that I'm sure they don't have to lose, especially at this time of year.But here's the thing this isn't an isolated incident many of the banks that called us to verify the checks had heard of this sceme and our bank alone had other companies hit. So please please people don't fall for this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You need to print out the comment that made you cry. You know the one where the woman said you blessed her life. Print it out and frame it or carry a copy in your purse.

Just in case any mean person gives you crap again. (Remember the "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (or something like that) post? If you get a mean comment again, you pull out the wonderful one she gave you and read it. Just to remind yourself that you are appreciated and respected.

Just FYI, there's a Clayton that's a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, too.

It's also a brand of non-alcoholic malt-based flavouring for drinks, that comes in a bottle that looks like whiskey. The idea is that you can order a drink in a bar of Clayton's and Coke and all your mates think you're drinking alcohol. Their slogan was "The drink you have when you're not having a drink". (The very fact that someone needed to lie to their friends about drinking says a lot about the historical culture of Australia, but I digress.)

Anyway, given the motto, the term "Clayton's" now means something you have when you haven't got anything, such as a "Clayton's policy" (it's the policy you have when you haven't got a policy) or a "Clayton's agreement" or a "Clayton's decision". Fairly handy turn of a phrase, I think.

So there you go. Maybe Clayton is the kid you have when you haven't got a kid... Hrrmm.... I think not....

Dawn, Did you know that Jon and Kate tape the show up to 12 hours a day 4 days a week? The children are missing school, there are cameras in their bedrooms, lights have been installed all over their home and the children have been filmed naked. The children are filmed whether they are sick or not, both families have been excluded from their lives and that Jon and Kate don't work real jobs so the children are supporting them. Please rethink your position on thinking that doing this show is ok for the children.